Leaving Scandinavia (Scandi Trip Day 24)

Today we left Scandinavia behind, to start a slow trek home through Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and France. We’re spending longer on this part of the trip than planned due to the problems with the van, though we had always planned a few days in The Netherlands on our way back. Today we headed to Rødby to catch the Scandlines ferry to Puttgarden in Germany. On the way the van died again, and didn’t seem keen to restart, but after a few minutes on the hard shoulder we managed to get it going again. Shortly after we had to make a quick call on whether to pull in to a rest stop or keep going, so I made the decision to put my foot down as we approached and see what happened. What happened was the engine management light came back on so I pulled off and made it into the caravan parking area. No stall this time, but the engine management light wouldn’t go out, so we switched off and waited for about 15 mins, before heading off again, a little slower this time (max of 80kph rather than 90). We made it to the ferry without further failure (bit lumpy at points though) and then had issues with the automatic check in (eventually they realised we shouldn’t have done auto check in with a motorhome, but the helpful lady who came to our rescue got us sorted and onto the ferry, which left as soon as we had loaded. By this time I was quite stressed and needed the whole 45 minute crossing and a coffee and pastry to recover! We then headed to Ikea in Lubeck, which turned up on my Camper Stopover app. Sure enough, 5 motorhome spaces here, so we have spent the afternoon in the IKEA cafe eating Scnitzel and Strudle. Van managed the run here without significant event. Tomorrow we head on to Groningen, our longest single-day drive of the rest of the trip, fingers and toes crossed.